Book Reviews

THE ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT CHALLENGE: What Really Works in the
Classroom?by Jeanne S. Chall. (Guilford Press, 206 pages,
$25.) Shortly before her death last year, Chall completed this
capstone book weighing the effectiveness of different instructional
approaches. A distinguished education scholar and founding director of
the Harvard University Reading Laboratory, Chall was widely known for
her belief that young children should receive direct phonics
instruction and her concerns about the excesses of whole language.
Still, she scorned the vituperative, either-or nature of the
phonics-whole language debate and was respected, even by opponents, for
her open-minded, nonideological approach to the subject.

In this slim volume, Chall argues that classroom instruction over the
past century has fallen into two broad categories: traditional
"teacher-centered" and progressive "student-centered" approaches. The
former, as the name implies, usually involves some form of direct
instruction; the teacher determines what students learn and how they
will learn it. Student-centered instruction, on the other hand,
operates on the assumption that kids learn best when they follow their
own interests. The teacher, in this scheme of things, is less a leader
than a facilitator—"the sage on the side," Chall writes, guiding
but never dominating.

While Chall rightly asserts that the best teachers draw from both
approaches, she contends that teacher-centered instruction is, on the
whole, more effective— especially during the elementary years,
when children must learn the fundamentals. To simply trust that
youngsters will acquire basic reading and math skills by joyfully
immersing themselves in a variety of loosely structured learning
activities is, she argues, to consign them to failure. And this, Chall
states, is exactly what too many student-centered purists have done
with ill-fated progressive experiments like the open classrooms of the
1960s and whole language.

But if teacher-centered instruction truly is more effective, Chall
has difficulty proving it. One problem is that reliable studies on
classroom techniques are hard to come by, mainly because researchers
have always had a tough time controlling variables. Another is that the
research tends to be heavily ideological, with proponents of a certain
pedagogical approach generating findings that support it. As a result,
Chall relies on a lot of research that is ancient.

At one point, she defends her position by suggesting that Asian
elementary schools do better than their American counterparts because
they rely more on teacher-centered instruction. It's an interesting
argument, but it doesn't hold up when you look at Japan. While it's
true that Japanese schools adhere to a rigid, prescribed curriculum,
teachers in that country tend to favor student- centered approaches
like cooperative learning and real-world problem solving.

Chall is on much firmer ground when she focuses on reading
instruction, her area of expertise. Linking the decline in national
reading scores during the 1980s to the ascendancy of whole language,
she draws on 40 years of her own research to insist that there is no
alternative in the early grades to the systematic teaching of
letter-sound relationships. Whole language, with its emphasis on simply
providing a literature-rich environment for kids, takes a far too
romantic view of how children learn to read, she argues.

Chall's ultimate criticism, though, is directed less at
student-centered instruction than at the polarized nature of American
education in general. Too many educators, she argues, adopt an "all or
nothing" stance about a particular pedagogy that "makes it difficult to
look objectively even at the good features of the opposing views."
Chall wants teachers to tap the entire spectrum of education
ideas—to draw on a wide range of classroom practices regardless
of their ideological points of origin. In the end, this call for
open-mindedness may be her most important legacy.

LEARNING OUTSIDE THE LINES: Two Ivy League Students With Learning
Disabilities and ADHD Give You the Tools for Academic Success and
Educational Revolution,by Jonathan Mooney and David Cole.
(Fireside, 288 pages, $13.) Part memoir and part study guide, this
book relates the unlikely success stories of two education outcasts who
manage, through a number of offbeat strategies, to get their academic
acts together and land coveted slots at Brown University. For his part,
Mooney had to overcome the debilitating effects of dyslexia, which made
it almost impossible for him to read and write during his elementary
school years. Cole, on the other hand, suffered from attention deficit
disorder. Restless and rebellious, he began using drugs, got suspended
from school, and wound up a down-and-out street kid in San
Francisco.

So how did these two youngsters make their ways to Brown? Both
credit sympathetic high school teachers, including one who encouraged
Mooney to put his thoughts on paper without worrying about spelling.
But mostly the authors went about the business of acquiring necessary
study skills, which they describe in chapters with titles like "Less
Reading, More A's," "Cram Like a Pro," and "Beating the Exam Game." The
tips are good, albeit delivered with a cynical awareness that academic
success is as much about beating the system as it is deeper learning.
Particularly amusing is the chapter on dominating classroom discussion,
in which the authors suggest kids ask "the ambiguously relevant
question."

Mooney and Cole come across as wise, amiable undergraduates, but
it's hard to take them seriously as revolutionaries out to transform an
oppressive education system. Reading between the lines, we see that
what these youngsters really needed from their schools was not more
freedom—as they suggest—but better skills and strategies to
help them overcome their respective disabilities.

STICKS AND STONES: The Troublesome Success of Children's
Literature From Slovenly Peter to Harry Potter,by Jack Zipes.
(Routledge, 176 pages, $25.) Zipes is something of an enigma: A
well-known scholar of children's literature, he doesn't really like
kid's books all that much—at least nothing written since the
kiddy-lit explosion of the 1970s. As he tells it here, the most recent
books written for the younger sets are "formulaic and banal," with
canned endings that make the world appear "happy and manageable." This
kind of fiction, he writes, induces in kids an unhealthy sense of
complacency about the world.

While this argument is certainly provocative, the most interesting
part of Sticks and Stones is Zipes' scathing attack on J.K.
Rowling's "Harry Potter" series, which the American media have held up
as an exemplar of great children's literature. Indeed, the Harry Potter
phenomenon, as far as Zipes is concerned, is a victory for mass media
and marketing: The books, like Disney's animated movies, succeed, he
argues, because of "the conventionality, predictability, and happy
ends" that are so easy to package commercially. For all their magic,
the Potter books, Zipes asserts, are devoid of mystery. Harry, he
writes, is a "perfect boy scout" endowed with supernatural
powers—"a caricature of various protagonists from pop culture."
There's nothing in Harry, or in the entire series, that rocks the boat
of expectations.

A contrary position, especially one argued with such vigor, is
always a pleasure to read. Zipes obviously cannot stop the Potter
phenomenon, but he raises important questions about it that will change
the way many readers look at the entire children's literature
genre.

—David Ruenzel

Vol. 12, Issue 4, Page 45

Published in Print: January 1, 2001, as Book Reviews

Notice: We recently upgraded our comments. (Learn more here.) If you are logged in as a subscriber or registered user and already have a Display Name on edweek.org, you can post comments. If you do not already have a Display Name, please create one here.

Ground Rules for Posting
We encourage lively debate, but please be respectful of others. Profanity and personal attacks are prohibited. By commenting, you are agreeing to abide by our user agreement.
All comments are public.